The Live American Comedy

The American position concerning what is happening on the ground in Egypt is, regrettably, an excellent comedy. It is a position that changes not only around the clock, but indeed, America says one thing sometimes and does the opposite and, at other times, says nothing at all!

In the last week of January, the world was awakened, and with it the United States, by the voices of worship that conquered the streets of Egypt. Egypt’s young men and women helped the world recall its collective memory and reclaim Egypt’s squandered dignity. Egypt is now the vigorous reality that many on the inside, before being on the outside, were convinced had ended, never to return.

The truth is that this surprising turn of events confused the United States just as it confused others. But because the Egyptian revolution was real and no joke, America’s position was compromised. And there is nothing new in the American position, by the way, either in content or proceedings, compared with what is going on in other countries witnessing fiery transformations.

At the beginning of the Egyptian revolution, Hillary Clinton went in front of the world to say, with enviable confidence, that the Egyptian regime was “stable” and that it would deal wisely with the protesters. But in just hours, the world discovered that the secretary of state did not know a thing about what was going on in the country, which was all the while being described as a “strategic ally.” Soon enough, the security forces of this “stable” regime retreated, the Army descended on the streets, and in the cities of Egypt many fell as martyrs or were injured. Then another declaration was made by a speaker on behalf of the American secretary of state, who announced that his country was “keeping an eye on and responding” to what was happening. This talk, as you can see, dear reader, is like water: colorless and odorless.

With subsequent events both day and night, the American secretary of state changed her stance while her advisers ripped open their minds for a unique means of expression. She responded, along with other officials, in starting to call for what was termed “an orderly transition of power.” This expression became a joke bandied about by the Egyptian people, who grasped the lightness of its influence, like one of those expressions that can mean anything and nothing at all.

Then the Americans waited for their president himself to speak, and the man delivered a speech consisting of ten paragraphs filled with stylistic sentences that did not hold a specific position. So while protests are breaking out — primarily in the streets — of all the major Egyptian cities in defiance of the mandatory curfew, Obama was using wide-ranging expressions taken from children’s books about what are known to be “American principles.” He spoke about his country’s support for the rights to “freedom of assembly, expression and information.” Then he mentioned that he spoke with President Mubarak personally and quoted Mubarak’s realization that “the present situation cannot continue, and that change needs to take place.” As you can see, dear reader, the American president is informing the world of Mubarak’s, and not America’s, opinion of what is happening in Egypt, without even telling us what type of visible change was alluded to in the phone conversation between the two presidents, nor the scope of Obama’s bearing toward the revolutionary demands erupting all throughout Egypt.

All this coincided with Frank Weizner’s trip to Egypt. Weizner was the U.S. ambassador to Egypt in the late ’80s and is currently President Obama’s envoy conducting intensive talks with Egyptian officials. Only hours after Weizner’s visit, the Egyptian president announced that he would not run in the coming presidential elections scheduled for next September and also pledged to amend the Constitution.

Yet soon enough, events exploded on Bloody Thursday, when gangs ostensibly protesting in support of Mubarak came out to attack the protesters in Liberation Square with Molotov cocktails and bladed weapons — on camels and horses no less — in a premeditated crime seen and heard worldwide. Only then did America officials come out to say that when it talks about an “organized transition” of power, it means now and not in September! Then, only hours later, The New York Times announced that the United States was conducting talks with officials in Egypt with the intention of having Mubarak step down, to cede power to his vice-president, after Biden had been saying hours earlier that Mubarak did not need to go!

Am I not saying to you, dear reader, that we are in front of a comedy series of the highest order, and as soon as you watch one episode, the next one follows?

Except the most comedic thing in all this is that the undercover American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which failed to anticipate the Egyptian revolution, failed even in preparing a coherent reading of this great revolution’s daily chronicles for Obama to construct his position. Furthermore, the Egyptian revolutionaries did not want American support. They are not concerned at all by what the Americans say. The Egyptian revolution is pure, and our young people have not and will not ask for aid from Americans. If only someone had gotten this across to Obama as he spoke in his address about the dawn of the importance of “technology” in the revolt of the Egyptians, as if his country took part in the revolution merely by inventing this technology. These are extremely comedic words, spoken as they were after many days of steadfastness on the part of Egyptian youth and their youthful revolution, and despite the fact that Egypt remained cut off from this technology during the revolt. Indeed, the Egyptian revolution is evidence that a lot can happen without technology, and not the reverse!

There is nothing new in this comedy. The instruction manual followed by successive American governments says “support your ally in the beginning and wait awhile, then if there is increased pressure on them, jump from the ship and claim that you were against them from the beginning.”

But the United States says that its stance on Egypt is different, because this time the U.S. was trying to strike a balance between support for democracy and its fear of Islamists coming to power in Egypt. But this justification is derived letter by letter from America’s own lexicon, which in previous times justified this stance out of a fear of “Communists” coming to power. The reality, yesterday and today, is that the question deals not with Communists or Islamists, but rather with the fear of witnessing those who insist on sovereign decision-making coming to power.