Cairo’s Second Speech

The devil was waiting for Obama in Cairo. “I’ve come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world,” said the President on June 4, 2009, in a hall filled with 3,000 young adults from Cairo University. Obama spoke a great deal then about religious tolerance, development, democracy and women’s rights. Like an omen, that morning Mubarak had excused himself from the ceremony; the opposition parties were not there either. Standing alone before the students and the world, Obama gave a message of reconciliation with political Islam, explicitly renouncing imposing democracy by force.

Two years later, the conflict still exists in Afghanistan and in Iraq as well as the threat of al-Qaida, and Obama’s popularity is resented for his weakness in dealing with the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. But the democratic wave is showing that something as strong as before exists: the simple fact that “a young person in Kansas can communicate instantly with a young person in Cairo.” And Mubarak has fallen.

Unexpectedly, several forces are pushing the U.S. to an unknown place. One is of the emotional type: Americans tend to see in every democratic revolt a repeat of 1787: the uprising against English rule. One can imagine Obama’s satisfaction about the spontaneity in the streets; but also his contrition for any young man that might have been wounded or killed on that June morning [sic]. At this time, thousands of foreign university students all across North America, the future elites of their countries, turned their gaze toward the president. And for a few days the media restored their pride as guardians of the freedom of expression. Winds of change rose up to their values, to their eternal struggle with interests [sic].

We are faced with an objective and disconcerting fact: in the middle of a global economic crisis, democracy and human rights return to the political forefront. When the old realpolitik seemed to have buried democracy like an engine of change and political instrument, some of the Arab youth stands up; that in Brazil, President Dilma Rousseff forces the Iranian government to stop the stoning of another woman, Sakineh Ashtani; that Chinese President Hu Jintao admits at the White House that his country should learn about human rights. From now on, the U.S. is obliged to act transparently in its Arab “playground,” especially after Wikileaks; but also the Russian and the Chinese leaders. One would think that globalization is pushing towards a merging of regulations, not only in finance, in business, and in climate, but also politically and socially.

This is in line with the new geopolitical imperative. Just listen to the protesters in Tunisia or Egypt to understand that the danger is not so much an assault on the power by the fanatics, but the continued support of autocracies: there lies underdevelopment, nuclear proliferation, the Palestinian conflict, or the West’s suspicion of the Arabic ways. And it is not written in the Koran that the alternative is necessarily worse. Despite the obligatory prudence and hesitation during the first few weeks, the U.S. administration has understood that there is no going back, and it is now looking at the medium and long term. It could even be that trends that are latent in their foreign policy are accelerating. It is predictable that Washington will distance itself from its unconditional favor towards Israel; it bets on Turkey as an example of equilibrium between secularism and Islam, while it winks at France and Germany in order to unblock its path towards the E.U. As for Iran, contrary to what the Ayatollahs hope for, if its neighbors look at themselves in the Turkish mirror many things could change. If democracy reinforces itself as a stability factor, then the Saudi and Persian Gulf petrocracies will have to make a move.

Paradoxically, this Arab tsunami reaches the U.S. in the middle of a return to a policy of the ”center,” when after the congressional elections Obama has backtracked on health, immigration, and taxes. But this game is not played in the center, but rather in radicalism: it is a major strategic investment that demands reinventing the balance of power from Rabat to Gaza, from Damascus to Tehran. A decade after Sept. 11, the world waits expectantly for Washington’s next moves. The U.S. Administration cannot nor wants to stop this process. With or without the presence of soldiers, what is relevant is that Obama demanded Mubarak’s departure on time, and guarantees that the democratic process has been opened. In Congress there will be no lack of acolytes to the Israeli intransigence, nor those nostalgic for realpolitik. To fight them, it is necessary to have a wise administration and a clear awareness of their limits. The E.U. must turn to the transitions and help its American partner to reconcile willpower, mobilizing its diplomacy to prevent fights for new areas of influence with Moscow, Beijing, or New Delhi. These days, someone or something is writing a second speech in Cairo that will set the course for the future, with all its consequences. And Mubarak has resigned.