Back in the U.S. after an amazing front row seat in Cairo at the Egyptian revolution, I have had to translate my point of view from the street to the news stream. But I can’t help being informed by what I saw in the streets of Cairo and in Tahrir Square. It’s a parallel world out here, with mainstream media coverage of Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman as the U.S.-approved man for the transition to democracy. Clearly an amazingly versatile politician, Suleiman — Egypt’s chief torturer and leading advocate of autocracy — has morphed into a bridgebuilder to the opposition. It must be time and distance that lets the press and the White House propose this with a straight face. It certainly isn’t flying in Tahrir Square where the pro-democracy forces are adamant they will stay until Mubarak leaves. One chant was, “We won’t go until you go.”
The U.S. government never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. The fastest and surest course to the “stability” that the U.S. seeks in the Middle East is political reform. But, when the opportunity arises to shuck an aging, repressive, kleptocracy in favor of a popular democracy, the worried looks and frowns come out. The backroom meetings begin. As Hilary Clinton famously said in an interview with Al Arabiya “I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family.” Indeed? Well, Hilary, we know it’s awfully hard to kick a friend of the family out into the cold. Maybe that’s why Mubarak’s own lawyer, Frank Wisner, was chosen as the U.S. envoy to “negotiate” with him.
And so our government has continued to do what it does so well — deal only with the people it knows best, propping them up when they stumble over their own scheming greed.
The people it knows best are the ones who created whatever problem/crisis is currently being faced. This is what brought us Goldman Sachs to manage the bailout of the financial system. It’s what brought us Halliburton to manage the occupation of Iraq. And now it brings us Omar Suleiman to manage the Egyptian governance crisis. It is a sclerotic approach that has attached the US to failed regimes over and over again.
The US blessed “transition” government in Egypt is trying to find ways to transition back to autocratic rule as fast as possible. This means continued arrests of activists, continued deployment of threatening thugs, meaningless stalling negotiations with the opposition, and efforts to isolate the pro-democracy forces of civil society in Tahrir Square. It’s a tactic that might work in the short run for the Mubarak kleptocrats. The disruption caused by the protests is a burden on all — but least bearable for the middle and working class who live from paycheck to paycheck. Having had no political life for the last 30 years, Egyptians are not particularly politically sophisticated, and the state controlled media is working hard to create divisions.
But where will that leave Egyptian society? Just as in the occupation of Iraq, the US is a pursuing a policy that is likely to result in wiping out secular civil society. The only opposition that is organized to survive an onslaught by the secret police is the Muslim Brotherhood — the bete noire of Obama and Clinton.
Everything I saw in Tahrir Square and elsewhere in Cairo during the days of protest was concentrated in a passionate desire for freedom of expression and a desire for democratic, accountable government. And almost every single person I talked to believed this was what America stood for. “We just want the same rights you have,” was a frequent refrain. Almost no one was interested in a religious government. This may have been the least radical revolution we have witnessed. The protesters are simply asking for their human rights. If it doesn’t succeed, it will carry a lesson for everyone in the Middle East.
The US government’s willingness to back the Mubarak regime and its failure to recognize their legitimate demands has been baffling to the protesters. But the same players and the same foreign policy have kept the US standing shoulder to shoulder with oppressive regimes around the world. Just in the last twelve months — Iraq, Honduras, Haiti — every time the US has backed the kleptocrats against the democrats.
It’s way too early to give up on the possibility the protesters will prevail. Their support is so broad-based, their demands so legitimate, and their commitment to a grassroots movement so strong that they may succeed without outside pressure in pushing Mubarak out. The Egyptian revolution may proudly be able to say that it won on its own.
