Is Obama Egypt's great enabler?

[babylonsister]

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mary-dejevsky/mary-dejevsky-is-obama-egypts-great-enabler-2201251.html

Mary Dejevsky: Is Obama Egypt's great enabler?

The US President's words have gone with the grain of Middle East societies in a way that the sermons of Bush and Blair did not

Wednesday, 2 February 2011

snip//

Mr Obama did not just yank US foreign policy back in the realist direction taken by his Democrat predecessor, Bill Clinton. He combined that shift with an unusual degree of cultural awareness, most conspicuously in the early overtures he made towards the Muslim countries, trading on his middle name and childhood years spent in Indonesia. One of his first foreign-policy moves was to extend an olive branch, or two, to Iran's President Ahmadinejad – that prominent member of Bush's "axis of evil". His next was a wide-ranging speech that April, addressed to Muslims everywhere. He delivered it in Cairo.

Polite society on both sides of the Atlantic has tended to dismiss both these initiatives as brave, but ultimately doomed. Where, it was asked, as Iran rebuffed approach after approach on the nuclear weapons issue, had Obama's goodwill gestures got him? Had his persistence not simply demeaned the US? The efficacy of the Cairo speech was similarly questioned: nice oratory, pleasing sentiments, but some of the highest praise came not from Arab leaders, but from Israeli moderates – hardly the priority audience he sought to win over.

More than a year and half later, however, the choice of Cairo University looks prescient, and maybe the wrong conclusions have been drawn from Iran. In each country – natural regional powers with proud and distinctive histories – Obama tapped into the same vein of national dignity and the undirected longing of a new and frustrated generation. What he also did, crucially, was to detoxify the democracy brand.

snip//

Maybe Obama's early overtures planted a seed – as the passion of Reagan and Thatcher once did with many young people living under Communism – that is starting to bear fruit across the Muslim world. Maybe it is simply that modern communications, plus the similar politics, economics and demographics across the region, are combining to galvanise discontent. What is evident, though, is that Obama's words have gone with the grain of these societies in a way that the sermons of Bush and Blair did not.

Any social ferment of this order brings huge uncertainty. And it is embarrassing to watch Western leaders struggling to divest themselves of allies from a bygone age. But if you ask which American leader contributed more to the cause of change in the Muslim world, you might not agree – yet – that it was Barack Obama, but you could surely accept that George Bush set it back.

[jeanpalmer]

1. The result will be the same

The poor Egyptians will still still be ruled by despots. He hasn't made a difference. It's all hot air, as usual.

[babylonsister]

2. Self-edit. Not worth it at all. nt

[jeanpalmer]

3. We've seen this so many times

Empty words. No change.

[jeanpalmer]

4. He had a chance to make a difference

But he's too timid. No conviction. These poor Egyptians will be under the same dictator's yoke a month from now as they were a month ago. It's sad but true. Mark it down. Guaranteed.

[babylonsister]

5. Baloney. But your disdain comes through loud and clear.

And what precisely should he do, in Egypt? Do you think Mubarek should be physically removed by us?


Obama: Transition in Egypt "Must Begin Now"

President Obama said late Tuesday afternoon that an "orderly transition" in Egypt "must begin now" in the wake of widespread protests that have thrown the country into turmoil.

The comments came on the same day Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced that he would not seek re-election in September - a stance that fell short of the demands of protesters, who want their longtime leader to step down immediately.

Mr. Obama said he spoke to the 82-year-old Mubarak following the Egyptian leader's announcement, a conversation that the White House said lasted approximately 30 minutes. A special U.S. envoy had reportedly informed Mubarak earlier that the Obama administration saw Mubarak's presidency -- which has lasted nearly three decades -- as essentially over.

<..> He continued: "Now, it is not the role of any other country to determine Egypt's leaders. Only the Egyptian people can do that. What is clear, and what I indicated tonight to President Mubarak, is my belief that an orderly transition must be meaningful. It must be peaceful, and it must begin now."

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20030312-503544.html

[jeanpalmer]

Orderly transition to Sulieman, the torturer?

It will be orderly all right, as they're waterboarded and shocked.

When he says, "Now, it is not the role of any other country to determine Egypt's leaders," isn't he giving Mubarak the green light? I feel sorry for those people. They're gonna get ------. I thought the Democvratic Party stood for something more. It's sad to watch. A self described constitutional scholar tolerating a torturer. It's what this party has descended to.

[pscot]

6. During the mid-fifties

there was a lot of liberationist rhetoric urging central European countries to throw off the Soviet yoke. Some of it came from the U.S.State Department. The Hungarians took it seriously. A lot of them got killed in the ensuing crackdown while Washington huffed and puffed and did nothing.