The American Break-Up with Mubarak

President of the United States Barack Obama has separated from Egyptian President Mubarak in an American way — coldly and cruelly. No deep predestined partnership unites them.

It is in vain that the analysts will try to describe the American moves over the last days as a betrayal of President Mubarak’s friendship. The moralistic, phony and completely unnecessary rebellion. The Americans forge pragmatic alliances, and they forge them with winners.

The president of Egypt has heard the entreaties of three American administrations, which have all explained to him — first, nicely and afterwards toughly — that the only way Egypt is going to remain stable is by means of governmental reform.

There will be those who will mock this notion; those who claim that the fate of all the Arabs is sealed — either Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood for the Sunnis or the Ayatollahs’ regime for the Shiites. There are plenty of Israelis believing so, but this is not the American perception – and it has never been.

The Americans are sure stability will be achieved in the Middle East only through reforms allowing for a broader representation of the layers of the populations of Arab countries. Perhaps not even a democracy, but a republic where the president’s son is not his designated successor.

Mubarak dismissed those requests over and over again. The Americans, despite the constant fear of governmental change in Egypt, went on pouring billions of dollars to him and the regime. The deal was simple: Mubarak stays in power and safeguards Egypt as an island of stability and support for the United States in the Middle East.

For her part, America gushes forth mammoth funds preserving Mubarak’s strength and keeps to herself her real opinions of his administration. It was a cold deal. No deep-rooted common fate unites the Americans with the Egyptians.

The Seam Connecting the Americans to the Egyptians is Potency

Israel and America are talking about a joint ethos of democracy, the melting pot — and this is even before they talk about the Jewish community. The seams connecting America and Egypt are way rougher and are based on one word: potency; of Egypt as the most dominant Arab country, of the United States as the only one capable of providing it support and of Mubarak as a strong leader.

Mubarak’s rule, in a series of mistakes, broke the deal. He began to swing. For three days the Americans were silent, waiting for him to speak. To their horror, they found out it was not the Muslim Brotherhood trying to chip away at the Egyptian regime but that it was a veritable people’s uprising — a revolution. The Americans, it should be remembered, are very sensitive to revolutions of the people; this is how they were born.

Finally, what happened when Mubarak spoke? The 82-year-old leader, sick with cancer, did not agree to give to his people anything other than a joke of appointing a new government, which would essentially be a government of generals. The Americans assessed his situation: to all appearances, he won’t be able to contend again, and his son Gamal is finished as a government option.

Yes, Barack Obama could have shown up before the media and declared, with infinite loyalty to the authoritarian ruler at the end of his days, that the United States is keeping track of the goings-on and is calling for bringing order back to the streets.

Obama’s Rational Solution was to Shake Mubarak Off

Maybe Obama could have earned some points with the Saudi and Jordan kings (as well as with a few Israeli commentators). But the rational solution was to ditch Mubarak out of a hope that the current regime will create an alternative stable character. This has been an American political break-up: short, cold and cruel.

The news items exposed during the last days are revealing, by the way, who was responsible for the raising of democratic awareness in Egypt — not Barack Obama but George W. Bush. In the framework of his agenda for the democratization of the Arab world, the Bush administration dished out a fortune for the building of Egyptian civil society.

Contrary to Bush, Obama has already been burned by the bitter experience with Hamas and the elections in the Palestinian Authority. Unlike Bush, he had very precise words: “So let me be clear: no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other.” He issued this very saying in Cairo.