America and Revolutionary Egypt

When Egypt was engulfed in the flames of its revolution the Obama administration spent a good deal of its energy trying to convince the Egyptian people that they needed to stand by their then-president Hosni Mubarak, even at the point when it was almost certain that his regime was about to fall. On the other hand, public opinion in the United States rejected vice president Joe Biden’s remarks that Hosni Mubarak was not a military dictator; and many Americans also denied the remarks of US envoy Mark Wisner’s claims that Mubarak’s survival in office was the only safety net for the region. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton even suggested a transitional period where Mubarak would be able to stay in power for a few months.

When the Egyptian people reacted in anger to the Obama administration’s position by holding signs that read, “shame on you Obama!”, the US was quick to retract its previous statements by claiming that Wisner’s remarks reflected his own personal opinions. However, the American administration’s attempts to salvage the situation proved futile and the gap between the two countries widened as it was revealed that Wisner, a retired American politician, was working as a consultant for a political firm that had been hired by the Egyptian government.

The US must bear responsibility for two things. The first is the destruction of the hopes and dreams of the Egyptian people despite the fact they continue to preach the importance of freedom and democracy; and the second is the fact that the US’s official position conflicted with the opinion of the American people regarding the Egyptian revolution. The Obama administration’s contradictory positions on the Egyptian revolution stem from the US desire to place itself somewhere between the realms of idealism and realism; US media personality Fareed Zakaria was quick to point out that Obama is perhaps one of the few presidents since Richard Nixon who has taken the time to carefully outline American interests and provide the resources that are necessary to achieve them.

The reality of America’s position can be defined by the fact that it stood in support of Mubarak for more than 30 years, a decision that led to the loss of American democratic principles. Initially, Obama justified his position on Mubarak by saying that the latter needed America’s support; however, upon seeing the vast crowds that gathered across Egypt during the revolution, the American president no longer found it acceptable to stand by a man who had been a strategic ally for more than a quarter of a century. Obama went on to express his concern after the military coup of 3 July 2013 that toppled the country’s first democratically elected leader. At the time, the administration in Washington went on to express its support for the democratic process and urged the Department of State to reconsider more than a billion dollars of aid that had originally been allocated to Egypt. Obama also promised the American people that he would act accordingly should he find that an abuse of democratic values had taken place in Egypt.

It is clear that the US approach to its diplomatic policies often conflicts with American popular opinion, and it is for this reason that one must base the analysis of American foreign policy on factors beyond American public opinion. In his book on American diplomacy, George Kennan argues that American foreign policy has been dictated by a small group of powerful men and that this has been taking place since the 1980s. Such partisan political policies are vaguely reminiscent of military regimes that are run by third-party militarism; and this type of political system serves to render the US government quite weak and categorises those who oppose it as anti-nationalistic.

One of the things that puzzled Western media outlets during the Egyptian revolution was the fact that many people refused to leave Tahrir square, the place where so many martyrs fell in defence of the revolution, even after the fall of Hosni Mubarak. The people wanted to achieve their dream of true democracy because they knew that they had merely liberated the concept of freedom and that true liberty could not be achieved unless the state’s institutions were also uprooted. The goal of the 2011 revolution was not merely to topple Mubarak and his two sons but to destroy the state institutions that Mubarak knew would survive when he stepped down. Unfortunately, this is precisely what didn’t happen, and the same institutions and power network have been suppressing the people’s ability to breathe ever since.

Translated from Al-Araby Al-Jadid, 26 January, 2015.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.