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Tuesday 22 May 2012

What's Politically Correct About Opposing Hosni Mubarak?

I don't have much sympathy for a regime that unleashes its own goons against peaceful protestors in an attempt to foment chaos as part of a strategy designed, one imagines, to leave the "silent majority" craving something, anything that restores order and "stability" to Egyptian society.

But it seems that's just another example of political correctness run amok. According to some, anyway. Such as our old friend Con Coughlin. Con, typically, takes a robust view of the Egyptian uprising:

At the risk of provoking the wrath of the politically correct lobby that wants to see wholesale reform of the Middle East, I am starting to feel rather sorry for Hosni Mubarak.

For thirty years this proud, Egyptian patriot, who fought with distinction in his country’s bitter wars with Israel, has devoted his life to serving his country’s best interests. A lot of people, particularly those advising US President Barack Obama, seem to forget that, when Mr Mubarak came to power in 1981, his country teetered on the brink of collapse after the charismatic Anwar Sadat was murdered by Islamic militants for daring to sign a peace treaty with Israel. 

[...] But all this seems to have been conveniently forgotten by the Obama administration which seems more interested in promoting its politically correct credentials than standing by a loyal and valued ally. Yes, Egypt’s stultifying political institutions are in need of reform and, yes, at 82, Mr Mubarak should be actively looking at his retirement plans. But I still feel he deserves better than Mr Obama’s contemptuous dismissal of his record, and calls for him to leave office immediately.

First, let's note that "politically correct" is a degraded insult these days. If jumping the shark hadn't jumped the shark itself I'd say that political correctness jumped the shark long ago. Disparaging those who disagree with you as "politically correct" isn't an argument, it's a way of avoiding argument. Look at me, it says, and see how brave I am to stand alone against the tide. Here I must stand for I can do no other. Unlike the soft-headed simpletons who prefersome sort of lemming-like approach that makes them feel warm and fuzzy. Alternatively, perhaps "politically correct" is just another word for fashionable these days.

Anyway. Granted, Con worries about the impact on Israel of regime change in Cairo. But almost no-one encouraged by this week's events believes that all will be plain-sailing on that front. Of course there are many difficulties and even more imponderables ahead. The alternative, however, or one of the alternatives, is endorsing a status quo that has manifestly failed. That's not a workable option.

Reading Con - and those who agree with him - is also to get the impression that the Obama administration is cheering this process on:

Mr Obama, like the neoconservative ideologues who briefly seized control of the Bush administration during the Iraq war, clearly has a vision to bring full-scale democracy to the Middle East. All I can say is that I hope he knows what he is doing.

Over to Marc Ambinder who has a good tick-tock of the week's events inside the White House. Remember, this is designed to make the administration look good:

What does the U.S. want?

Principally, an ally in the region that will not further destabilize the Arab-Israeli peace process, that will not complicate dealings with Iran, that will not (significantly) threaten Saudi Arabia's intra-Arab political aspirations while simultaneously containing them. The reality by late last week, as Obama and his advisers came to conclude, was that Egypt 2.0 would be a reforming Egypt as well. The sooner Mubarak understood this, the better. And of course, given that the protesters focused so cleanly on Mubarak as the source of their discontent, he would have to go. But Obama insisted that his team not call for regime change. For one thing, though protesters might suddenly experience a flood of positive feeling toward the United States, given the general level of anti-U.S. hostility inside the country, at least as assessed by intelligence reports, any government seen as being endorsed by the U.S. would risk legitimacy in the long-run.

"We recognize that the bar on the street is set at a place we could never possibly reach," the administration official said. "They want the U.S. to declare Mubarak needs to leave now. We're not in the business of regime change."

Emphasis added. There were people who thought something like this might happen and they did want the administration to do more to support the democratic opposition in Egypt. These were the people most disappointed by the Obama administration. As Laura Rozen reported last September:

A bipartisan group of senators and foreign policy analysts is pushing the Obama administration to prepare for the looming end of Hosni Mubarak’s rule in Egypt by putting a new emphasis on Egyptian political reform and human rights.

The group’s immediate goal is to pressure Mubarak to allow international monitors to observe Egypt’s parliamentary elections in November, but the overall aim is much broader.

“The bottom line is that we are moving into a period of guaranteed instability in Egypt,” said Robert Kagan, a foreign policy scholar with the Brookings Institution who co-founded the Egypt Working Group with Michele Dunne of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “So the idea [that] we can keep puttering on as if nothing is going to change is a mistake. ... What we need now is to move to deliverables.”

[...] “We don’t have to debate U.S. policy over the past 30 years because the Mubarak era is ending,” said Elliott Abrams, former Middle East adviser to the George W. Bush White House. “The point is, the next government of Egypt has to be a legitimate government for there to be stability in Egypt. How is it going to attain that legitimacy? I would argue that there really is only one way: through elections and respect for human rights.”

Now, as it happens and after a wobbly start, I think the Americans have more or less done about as well as could be expected this week. From their perspective there's neither any reward for backing Mubarak nor, rightly or not, for running ahead of events. In any case, as Gregory Djerejian points out again, this is not an American show. It's an Egyptian one. The White House is reacting to events as they unfold, not leading them and Washington's call for Mubarak to leave is an attempt to prevent greater instability, not a clarion call for democratic revolutions across the middle east. As the wags have it, Washington wants a change of government but not necessarily a change of regime. 

It may be too late for even that, however (though one should not doubt the regime's apparent determination to dig in). Whatever one may think of Hosni Mubarak's past usefulness it's apparent that his time is also past. I don't think there's anything "politically correct" about recognising this. 

Again, the future is filled with known and unknown unknowns but even if you accept the west must deal with some unsavoury characters the idea that one should support them past their sell-by date is odd to say the least. Even if you think we needed him and to support him in the past, this is a very strange thing of which to be proud.

Relatedly, David Aaronovitch's Times column (£) this week is good on the universal qualities and benefits of decent and democratic government.

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