Did Obama Pass the Egypt Test?

As the regime was planning a small massacre in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, I could not resist yesterday emailing a high-ranked Western diplomat who currently lives in Europe: “They are going to massacre these people. Is America just going to sit and watch?”

The response came immediately. “There will not be a massacre. Everything is going according to plan. The military is loyal to Omar Suleiman. Mubarak will not be a candidate in the elections. Maybe after a ‘small-scale’ massacre, he will have to retire. And everything will be in Omar Suleiman’s control until the election in September, and then the election will happen.”

It broke my heart; in my head I started thinking how many deaths that “small-scale” massacre may mean.

While I was thinking this, the Mubarak regime’s thugs, as well as civilian police, started barricading the demonstrators in Tahrir Square.

The “small-scale” massacre had begun.

If I had to guess what happens after this, there will be blood in future clashes. Egypt and the international community will beg for the military to take over; perhaps Mubarak, who was condemned by the West, will have to leave early; and Egypt will enter the “controlled democratization” stage under the supervision of Omar Suleiman, the intelligence man who ordered 3,000 people put to death over lunch without flinching.

It will eventually enter this stage, but it will be delayed and at a heavy cost. It is theatrics.

Of course, Washington’s extreme tolerance for Mubarak and other Western-supportive dictators deserves much blame for the situation in Egypt.

If you do not believe this, look at the WikiLeaks reports written by American diplomats about Mubarak. “He speaks good English,” “Experienced,” “Sincerely believes in secularism,” “Hates Islamic fundamentalism,” etc. In short, the “He-is-our-man!” attitude.

What a shame. After the Iraq War, there was the opportunity to encourage countries like Egypt toward democracy; however, it was spoiled. After Hamas came to power in Palestine in 2005, the Americans instantly gave up on their passion for democratization.

However, this is a false equation. In that, I agree with Tayyip Erdogan: “Chaos will not be born from democracy.” Even if Islamists gain power, they will blend with the system in the democracy basket. Instead, you should be afraid of the Western-supportive tyrants who promise stability and throw their people into Osama bin Laden’s arms.

It is interesting: The Obama administration, which we expected to be more democratic, ended up being more hesitant than Bush in Middle Eastern freedom.

Washington could not keep up with the pace of things in this last crisis. They did not include in the calculation the domino effect that could spread from Tunisia. Obama only called for reform and democracy from Mubarak three to four days after the demonstrations began. He should have done so two years ago. The U.S. felt relieved when Omar Suleiman was appointed vice president, thinking the regime was secure; however, it should have foreseen that as long as Mubarak was in power, things would not calm down. Subsequently, with Obama sending a special envoy to Cairo, they pressured him to not run again in the next elections. (The phone call between Erdogan and Obama was in preparation for this.) But at that point, they should have been planning for Mubarak to leave.

Maybe it is easy to comment from the outside. But come on — does it really look like the Obama administration successfully handled this test? Was it really that difficult to see that these days would come, and that the dictators in the region who are supported by the West for stability are actually the number one reason for instability and American unpopularity?