As of this posting, the situation in Egypt remains unsettled. We had fairly good intel via social networks like Twitter until the Egyptian security troops turned of Internet access, phone service and essentially tried to plunge the country in to an information black hole.
It certainly seems unlikely that Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak can survive an uprising that includes Islamists, students and now middle class Egyptians. It's one thing for college kids to burn a tire now and again, or for professional grievers and nihilists like al Qaeda to seize an opportunity. But when you get sideways with the people who actually do the work, pay the taxes and contribute to a country's production, you're pretty much of a short-timer.
Here's the ironic thing. Almost 30 years ago I did a radio interview with a guy named Dan Meyer. Meyer was an Israeli. He happened to be the former press secretary to Menachem Begin, a Nobel laureate who became prime minister of Israel in 1977. As PM Begin was responsible for negotiating the Camp Dave Peace Accords in 1978. His opposite number who shared the Nobel prize with him for bringing peace to the Middle East was Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
What made the interview important was the date: early October 1981. It followed by a few days, the assassination of Sadat on October 6 of that year. So, ever the master of the obvious, I asked Meyer if the treaty could endure without Sadat. His answer was pretty predictable (yes), but his reasoning was actually newsworthy.
Meyer explained that he was present for most of the negotiations with the exception of those long, Kumbaya walks between the two leaders. And then he said that Sadat played a relatively minor role in the negotiations. Sadat was the strategist, he explained. A big picture guy, but certainly not a detailed one. The nuts and bolts of the treaty fell to Sadat's chief tactician-a beefy air force officer named Hosni Mubarak, according to Meyer. Sadat may have made the peace, but Mubarak made the treaty.
Greased by $28 billion in U.S. aid to Egypt over the last three decades, the treaty has proven to be surprisingly enduring. So has Hosni Mubarak.
As we learned in school power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. President Mubarak was a bright guy and a brilliant tactician. It was he who rebuilt the Egyptian Air Force after its humiliation at the hands of the Israelis in the 1967 Six Day War. It was Mubarak who engineered the air war against Israel in the Yom Kippur War of 1973, and damned near helped defeat the Israelis for the first time.
But President Mubarak joined a long line of Middle East caudillos, that has included the Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, the House of Saud and an endless parade despots and tyrants in that region. Thirty years of oppression and kleptocracy is a long time.
The question tonight for the U.S. is whether it throws a long-time ally, Mubarak, under the tanks and provides at least verbal support for the uprising, or whether it stands by Mubarak. Whether the U.S. will be on the right side of history or not.
Three nights ago President Obama stood before a joint session of Congress and challenged Americans to create a new economy, calling it our "Sputnik moment." Well, for President Obama this is his Jimmy Carter moment. Does he support a long-time, strategic, but despotic ally as President Carter did with the Shah of Iran? Or will he support the spread of democracy-something he castigated his predecessor for doing?
Guess correctly and he gets the first real foreign policy victory of his presidency. Guess wrong and he's Jimmy Carter II.
The president's problem is that he has to outguess a master tactician in Hosni Mubarak.
Just thought you might like to know.
It certainly seems unlikely that Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak can survive an uprising that includes Islamists, students and now middle class Egyptians. It's one thing for college kids to burn a tire now and again, or for professional grievers and nihilists like al Qaeda to seize an opportunity. But when you get sideways with the people who actually do the work, pay the taxes and contribute to a country's production, you're pretty much of a short-timer.
Here's the ironic thing. Almost 30 years ago I did a radio interview with a guy named Dan Meyer. Meyer was an Israeli. He happened to be the former press secretary to Menachem Begin, a Nobel laureate who became prime minister of Israel in 1977. As PM Begin was responsible for negotiating the Camp Dave Peace Accords in 1978. His opposite number who shared the Nobel prize with him for bringing peace to the Middle East was Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
What made the interview important was the date: early October 1981. It followed by a few days, the assassination of Sadat on October 6 of that year. So, ever the master of the obvious, I asked Meyer if the treaty could endure without Sadat. His answer was pretty predictable (yes), but his reasoning was actually newsworthy.
Meyer explained that he was present for most of the negotiations with the exception of those long, Kumbaya walks between the two leaders. And then he said that Sadat played a relatively minor role in the negotiations. Sadat was the strategist, he explained. A big picture guy, but certainly not a detailed one. The nuts and bolts of the treaty fell to Sadat's chief tactician-a beefy air force officer named Hosni Mubarak, according to Meyer. Sadat may have made the peace, but Mubarak made the treaty.
Greased by $28 billion in U.S. aid to Egypt over the last three decades, the treaty has proven to be surprisingly enduring. So has Hosni Mubarak.
As we learned in school power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. President Mubarak was a bright guy and a brilliant tactician. It was he who rebuilt the Egyptian Air Force after its humiliation at the hands of the Israelis in the 1967 Six Day War. It was Mubarak who engineered the air war against Israel in the Yom Kippur War of 1973, and damned near helped defeat the Israelis for the first time.
But President Mubarak joined a long line of Middle East caudillos, that has included the Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, the House of Saud and an endless parade despots and tyrants in that region. Thirty years of oppression and kleptocracy is a long time.
The question tonight for the U.S. is whether it throws a long-time ally, Mubarak, under the tanks and provides at least verbal support for the uprising, or whether it stands by Mubarak. Whether the U.S. will be on the right side of history or not.
Three nights ago President Obama stood before a joint session of Congress and challenged Americans to create a new economy, calling it our "Sputnik moment." Well, for President Obama this is his Jimmy Carter moment. Does he support a long-time, strategic, but despotic ally as President Carter did with the Shah of Iran? Or will he support the spread of democracy-something he castigated his predecessor for doing?
Guess correctly and he gets the first real foreign policy victory of his presidency. Guess wrong and he's Jimmy Carter II.
The president's problem is that he has to outguess a master tactician in Hosni Mubarak.
Just thought you might like to know.
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